Rare Colorado River fish is pulled back from extinction

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This undated photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows Katie Creighton of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Brandon Albrecht, of Bio-West, a government contractor, holding two large razorback suckers collected from Lake Powell, a reservoir on the Colorado River. Razorback suckers are an endangered fish found only in the Colorado River and its tributaries. Federal officials said Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018, the razorback sucker population is growing and that they will recommend that the fish be reclassified from endangered to threatened. (Travis Francis/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP) - Bulletin

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This undated photo provided by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service shows Katie Creighton of the Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Brandon Albrecht, of Bio-West, a government contractor, holding two large razorback suckers collected from Lake Powell, a reservoir on the Colorado River. Razorback suckers are an endangered fish found only in the Colorado River and its tributaries. Federal officials said Thursday, Oct. 4, 2018, the razorback sucker population is growing and that they will recommend that the fish be reclassified from endangered to threatened. (Travis Francis/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service via AP)7881481

DENVER — Another rare Colorado River fish has been pulled back from the brink of extinction, wildlife officials said Thursday, the second comeback this year for a species unique to the Southwestern United States.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended reclassifying the ancient and odd-looking razorback sucker from endangered to threatened, meaning it is at risk of extinction, and the danger is no longer immediate.

Hundreds of thousands of razorbacks once thrived in the Colorado River and its tributaries, which flow across seven states and Mexico.

By the 1980s, they had dwindled to about 100. Researchers blame non-native predator fish that attacked and ate the razorbacks and dams that disrupted their habitat.

Their numbers have bounced back to between 54,000 and 59,000, thanks to a multimillion-dollar effort that enlisted the help of hatcheries, dam operators, landowners, native American tribes and state and federal agencies.

“It’s a work in progress,” said Tom Chart, director of the Upper Colorado River Endangered Fish Recovery Program. “We get more fish out in the system; they’re showing up in more places; they’re spawning in more locations.”

Chart’s program oversees the campaign to restore the razorback sucker and three other fish, all of them found only in the Colorado River system.

In March, the Fish and Wildlife Service recommended changing the humpback chub from endangered to threatened. It takes 18 to 24 months to complete the process, including a public comment period.

The razorback sucker’s name comes from a sharp-edge, keel-like ridge along its back behind its head. Chart thinks the ridge may have evolved to help the fish stay stable in the turbulent waters of the Colorado.

It can grow up to 3 feet long and live up to 40 years.

Razorbacks have been around for between 3 million and 5 million years, but trouble arrived as the population expanded in the Southwest. State and federal agencies began introducing game fish into the Colorado without realizing they would devour the native fish, Chart said. A spurt of dam-building was a boon to cities and farms but interrupted the natural springtime surge of melting snow, which in turn shrank the floodplains that provided a safe nursery for young razorbacks.

Dams made parts of the rivers too cold for razorbacks, because they release water from the chilly depths of reservoirs and they blocked the natural migration of the fish.

By the late 1980s, most of the wild razorbacks were old, an ominous sign they were no longer reproducing, Chart said. The Fish and Wildlife Service began capturing the remaining wild razorbacks and moving them to hatcheries to begin rebuilding the population.

The agency designated razorbacks an endangered species in 1991, although Utah and Colorado enacted state protections earlier.

Biologists began restocking rivers with hatchery-raised razorbacks in 1995. About 55,000 are released into the Colorado and its tributaries annually.

The Fish and Wildlife Service began working with dam operators to time water releases to help razorbacks spawn and restore flood plains for them to mature.

Changing the fish from endangered to threatened will allow more flexibility in the way it is protected, said Kevin McAbee, deputy director of the recovery program.